Coat/develop module with shared dispense

Abstract

An apparatus for dispensing fluid during semiconductor substrate processing operations. The apparatus includes a central fluid dispense bank comprising a plurality of dispense nozzles coupled to a plurality of fluid sources and a first processing chamber positioned to a first side of the central fluid dispense bank. The apparatus also includes a second processing chamber positioned to a second side of the central fluid dispense bank and a dispense arm adapted to translate between the central fluid dispense bank, the first processing chamber, and the second processing chamber.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 639,109, filed Dec. 22, 2004, entitled “Twin Architecture For Processing A Substrate,” which is incorporated herein by reference. [0002] The following two regular U.S. patent applications (including this one) are being filed concurrently, and the entire disclosure of the other application is incorporated by reference into this application for all purposes. [0003] application Ser. No. ______, filed ______, entitled “Coat / Develop Module with Shared Dispense” (Attorney Docket No. A9873 / T60100); [0004] application Ser. No. ______, filed ______, entitled “Coat / Develop Module with Independent Stations” (Attorney Docket No. A9873.2 / T60110);BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0005] The present invention relates generally to the field of semiconductor processing equipment. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for dispensing fluids onto...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] According to the present invention, techniques related to the field of semiconductor processing equipment are provided. More particularly, the present invention includes a method and apparatus for dispensing fluids onto a semiconductor substrate. Merely by way of example, the method and apparatus has been applied to two processing chambers in a coat / develop module sharing a central fluid dispense bank. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability.

[0019] Many benefits are achieved by way of the present invention over conventional techniques. For example, the present technique allows for sharing of some common components, reducing system cost, complexity, and footprint. Moreover, embodiments of the present invention provide for increased system reliability while reducing the number of redundant systems provided for each processing chamber. These and other benefits will be described in more detail throughout the present specification and more particularly below.

Problems solved by technology

As a result of the number and quality of the dispense nozzles in some of these modules, the cost of the dispense system may be much larger than the cost of the spin bowl.

Therefore, in some dispense systems, the most expensive system components, namely those included in the dispense apparatus, are idle during a significant fraction of the processing time.

The system as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,114 suffers from several problems.

First, the system provides only a single resist nozzle that dispenses a single resist.

Thus, the system does not provide a number of different coatings, including coatings of different materials.

Second, the only isolation provided between the spin chucks and the other items contained inside the casing is a cup surrounding each spin chuck.

Although this cup design may provide some containment for liquid particles scattered from the wafer surface, control of the atmosphere in the vicinity of the wafers is not provided by this design.

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